Josh Sugarmann and the VPC were always a little out there, but Sugarmann has always been more honest about his end goals than many of his counterparts, and he was a man willing to do his homework on the issue. For a while he was the brains of the gun control movement.
But now VPC wants to take personally owned firearms away from soldiers because they might hurt themselves with it. Yeah, that’s a message I’d want to take front and center in front of the public as an example of the kind of common sense measures their movement thinks we need. This has about as much logic as suggesting that depressed doctors and pharmacists remove any medication from their medicine cabinet at home because the easy access means it’s too easy for them to deliberately OD.
A majority of them (suicides) have two things in common, alcohol and a gun. That’s just the way it is….And when you have somebody that you in fact feel is high risk, I don’t believe it’s unreasonable to tell that individual that it would not be a good idea to have a weapon around the house.
But telling them it is not a good idea to have alcohol around the house would of course be unreasonable.
It’s much harder to kill a tyrant with a beer can.
This is stunning stupidity, even for them. So we take a time period between the peak of two wars (where soldiers were just starting to cycle out of their first tours) and the end of those wars, analyze the time in between and blame the suicides on GUNS???? How about the PTSD from the fucking wars they were in causing the suicides?
I thought I had seen it all with their utter abuse of statistics but this takes the cake.
Is it really surprising when over half of their 30k gun deaths statistic are suicides? They don’t include any other suicides that don’ involve guns, and they don’t care about anyone’s mental health.
BTW, the comment that the NRA wraps itself in others’ valor is especially vile. I wouldn’t be surprised if the NRA were over 50% veterans–in any event, it’s a very high percentage. (Probably less now than before, since more women are joining). Compare that with the anti-gun crowd, almost all of whom served their country in the Hall Monitors Association.
The number of veterans at NRA is indeed very high.
Many woman are Veterans and Members!
Amen brother.
Military suicides are exceptionaÂlly high. Rather than address the root-cause of the issue (overwhelmÂing deploymentÂs; misguided RoE in theatre; ZERO command support at home; massive unemploymeÂnt of service-meÂmbers and family; PTSD; brain-injuÂries) they want to go after…toÂols.
Suicidal tendencies will not go away if you take away the gun, the pill, the car, the rope or the knife that might be used to do the deed. Forget where you stand on gun-controÂl, the real problem here is that the soldier wants to die. If you don’t fix that, nothing will change.
I am somewhat disgusted that the gun-controÂl people will literally use any argument to restrict their abject fear. I say take your fear elsewhere. Don’t distract from the real serious issue of soldier suicide by thinking some easy answer (“Take their guns!”) will magically wash away the true problems faced by many.
And for the record, personallyÂ-owned firearms are not the only firearms a soldier will have access to…
But government-issued firearms are not dangerous, or at least, they have the Westworld circuitry that prevents them from being fired at the issued user. :-)
As a veteran and lifetime DAV member, as well as a Member of the NRA, I’m appalled by the suggestion. Mr. Sugerman no longer walks the Razors Edge but is instead over the line with his commentary.
His suggestion, and anyone supporting it, is beneath contempt. Combat related psychosis will not cease and desist because you violate the rights of a citizen who took an oath to defend those rights.
There are consequences in life in every thing we do. So it is with combat. Showing support for veterans is a good idea. Trying to strip them of their rights is perverse.
I went ahead and commented on Mr. Sugarmanns silly idea on HuffPo, its too short, HuffPo only allows 250 words, here’s hoping he responds! Good points BTW Patrick! Would you mind if I quoted you, should Mr. Sugarmann respond?
Please. I was going to comment but HuffPo’s login mechanism popped a warning from Google saying HuffPo wanted a copy of my Contacts, just because I used GMail to authenticate to their site.
I declined.
Tell Josh to come my way…will gladly trade thoughts.
The “leading lights” never deign to respond, with the possible exception of Ladd Everitt’s perpetual sockpuppetry.
So, in order to keep members of the US armed forces from using lawfully-owned personal firearms to commit suicide, Mr. Sugarmann would threaten the use of deadly force to divest members of the US armed forces of said lawfully-owned personal firearms. And this makes sense how…?
I don’t believe it’s unreasonable to tell General Chiarelli and Josh Sugarweasel to kiss my ass.
American soldiers are supposed to die for freedom, but should not be allowed to enjoy it? That kind of view should be forcefully addressed, from a very American perspective.
Freedom isn’t something you enjoy, but suffer until your enlightened betters take it away from.
If Obama, Romney, Santorum and Gingrich really are our “enlightened betters”, then maybe we should all just commit suicide right now.
(Here’s to a toast with Drano–I don’t want to use a gun for this, because I don’t want to increase the statistics that the Brady Campaign actually care about. After all, it’s the way you die that matters, not your actual death! /Sarcasm)
Has anyone seen the comments from “pacrimco” on Huffpo? Unreal
He starts with the “reasonable laws” line but is quickly fact-slapped into
Oblivion. Does he engage, clarify or expand on his comments? HAH!
No, he just pulls out tue tired “The mean ‘ol NRA only cares about money and
They run the government, boo hoo” line. Unreal. Anyone know who this
Joker is? I.E. Is he a sockpuppet, that would be just too rich…